Representative of the 1394 Trade Association Richard Davies said: "We disagree with the InStat report, and see good growth for FireWire deployment both now and in future.

"We're really pleased with FireWire's progress right now," he added, though he agreed that USB 2.0 is seeing more use in the digital camcorder market.

Davies countered that FireWire is seeing deployment in new off the radar industries, such as aerospace, instrumentation and high-end storage systems.

The trade body also pointed out that a huge number of new computers from manufacturers including Dell, HP, Toshiba, Apple and others "demonstrates FireWire's continued strength in the PC, laptop and handheld markets."

The group also claimed new FireWire-equipped solutions will soon ship from Fujitsu, Everex and Gateway - itself contrary to claims that FireWire deployment is stagnating.

“FireWire has become a standard fixture on the new generation of personal computers, with particularly high penetration in a compelling new generation of notebooks,” said James Snider, executive director of the 1394 Trade Association.

"We expect to see this trend continue as manufacturers realize the value of 1394’s speed and reliability for specific applications or for connecting with a home or business network.”

The FireWire standard was developed by the IEEE P1394 Working Group at the urging of Apple. Apple made many contributions to the development of the standard, though Texas Instruments, Sony and others also helped.

FireWire is an Apple trademark, filed in 1993. The name was chosen by a group of engineers before the standard was first revealed at Comdex 1993. Users can daisy-chain up to 63 devices together using FireWire.

The technology was honoured by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, receiving a 2001 Primetime Emmy Engineering Award for its impact on the television industry.